I have a Seagate Freeagent 1TB go flex external HDD. It changed from NTFS to RAW format. I am concerned about doing data recovery by myself as i'm only 18 years of age, and i thought it's better letting a professional doing it. However, my clarification here is, if i attempt the data recovery and obtain my files on the HDD, is it a copy of the original data or is it the original data that i've recovered. So if it's just a copy, then the original is intact inside it, right?
External HDD changed from NTFS to RAW. Is manual recovery safe or do I consult a computer professional?
- Thread starter kash22
- Start date
Hi
Most professional data recovery programs will recover data to a different physical drive from the one it came from
so you need sufficient free hard disk space for all the data you wish to recover
Undelete often puts data back where it came from
What did you do to make the drive raw ?
. (unplug drive while it was writing to disk, power failure)
If you do not know what happened you need to test the drive to see it does not have physical damage .
Seagate have a Windows diagnostic program.
If that determines there is no physical damage you can look at recovery software such as TestDisk / PhotoRec
free from
http://www.cgsecurity.org/
How important is your data ?
how much can you afford ?
(cost may depend on amount of data on drive)
If you have lots of money & lack confidence get a professional to help on a no fix no fee basis
If drive is not physically damaged you are unlikely to make things worse than they are if you never write to the external disk
do not run chkdsk until above tests and data recovery are completed.
If the Partition info is corrupted TestDisk may deal with the problem
If MBR (first sector of hard disk) corrupted MBR Wizard may fix problem ($10 USD )
regards
Mike Barnes
Most professional data recovery programs will recover data to a different physical drive from the one it came from
so you need sufficient free hard disk space for all the data you wish to recover
Undelete often puts data back where it came from
What did you do to make the drive raw ?
. (unplug drive while it was writing to disk, power failure)
If you do not know what happened you need to test the drive to see it does not have physical damage .
Seagate have a Windows diagnostic program.
If that determines there is no physical damage you can look at recovery software such as TestDisk / PhotoRec
free from
http://www.cgsecurity.org/
How important is your data ?
how much can you afford ?
(cost may depend on amount of data on drive)
If you have lots of money & lack confidence get a professional to help on a no fix no fee basis
If drive is not physically damaged you are unlikely to make things worse than they are if you never write to the external disk
do not run chkdsk until above tests and data recovery are completed.
If the Partition info is corrupted TestDisk may deal with the problem
If MBR (first sector of hard disk) corrupted MBR Wizard may fix problem ($10 USD )
regards
Mike Barnes
Thank you Mike, for your suggestion, i'll first check about the drive's physical status. And if it has experienced some damage, what would be the ideal approach? The HDD contains games which i stored for my new MSI gt70 which i got yesterday. And it contains a lot of movies. But the most important thing in it is a back up of my father's business work. So it's essential i somehow recover it. 
Thank you for your suggestion
Thank you for your suggestion Hi
If your fathers business computer is still working well buy a new external hard drive
If the business PC supports USB 3 go for a USB 3 hard drive
Make a new backup and keep it at a different location from business PC .
If you need to recover business data seek out a data recovery professional
Experts would image the hard disk first but if the disk is dying that May not succeed .
If you do not need to bring back critical business data then
Run Seagates diagnostics & let us know the results
Regards
Mike Barnes
If your fathers business computer is still working well buy a new external hard drive
If the business PC supports USB 3 go for a USB 3 hard drive
Make a new backup and keep it at a different location from business PC .
If you need to recover business data seek out a data recovery professional
Experts would image the hard disk first but if the disk is dying that May not succeed .
If you do not need to bring back critical business data then
Run Seagates diagnostics & let us know the results
Regards
Mike Barnes
hmmmm. My father suggested to go in for professional help, and the disk is actually not in a critical state, as i use it on my TV and the movies play just fine. It's just the RAW format issue i believe. Nevertheless, thank you very much for your help and suggestions, Mike. I even purchased my GT70 after seeing suggestions from this forum. So thanks 
Hi
I hope your tv did not convert your external hard disk to a unix /Linux format such as ext 2 or ext 3 etc
Try booting PC from a live Linux cd and see if it can see any partitions or files on the drive
I do not see how a tv can play movies but windows can not see nt file system
Regards
Mike Barnes
I hope your tv did not convert your external hard disk to a unix /Linux format such as ext 2 or ext 3 etc
Try booting PC from a live Linux cd and see if it can see any partitions or files on the drive
I do not see how a tv can play movies but windows can not see nt file system
Regards
Mike Barnes
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